Page 62 of Her Soul to Own

The drive back is quiet. Willowridge bleeds into the forest, and streetlights vanish. All that’s left is the sound of tires on the road and the pulse in my throat.

At the estate, the lights are low, and the hush is sharp. He opens the door for me without speaking. He just looks at me with those dark eyes like he knows exactly how many drinks I refused. How many fake laughs I let slip through painted lips.

I step out of the car, my heels clicking softly on marble as I make my way inside. My skin feels too tight, like the dress is clinging to me in a throttling manner. I kick off my shoes just inside the door, sighing at the relief.

But I don’t make it to the stairs.

A hand slams beside my head while the other wraps around my throat, not choking, justholding.

Silas.

He pins me to the door with his entire body, a wall of heat and muscle and fury wrapped in hardness and steel. My whole body is on fire at the touch and the proximity.

“You listened. Don’t drink anything you didn’t open yourself,” he says, his voice like iron.

My breath stutters. “You watched me again.”

“I always watch.”

His eyes are on me, pouring into me like he’s drinking me in. My body responds before my mind does, arching just a little into his hold, my pulse hammering against his palm.

He leans in, his nose brushing my jaw. His breath is warm and dangerous. Then, just as fast, he lets go. “Be a good girl,” he murmurs. “I have somewhere to be.”

He steps back, just like that.

And I hate how disappointed I feel.

I hate that I want to grab his wrist, pull him back, press his body against mine, and whisper every filthy thing I need him to do. I want him to tear the dress from my skin, shove me against the nearest wall, and take me with the kind of hunger he never quite hides. I want his hands everywhere—on my throat again, yes, but also on my hips, my thighs, and between them, pushing me past the edge until all that exists is him and the way he ruins me. I want him rough. I want him relentless. I want to forget every camera flash, every whispered comment, every moment tonight that I had to pretend.

But I’m too tired. Too spent. All that remains of me tonight is skin and longing and the ache of everything I didn’t ask for.

So I just nod. “Okay,” I whisper.

And then just like that, he’s gone.

I drag myself up the stairs, each step heavier than the last. The dress clings to my skin, the fabric catching at my knees as if even it wants me to stop. I don’t bother changing. I don’t bother washing my face. I just collapse onto the bed face-first, the cool sheets a balm I didn’t know I needed.

Sleep swallows me before I can even close my eyes.

Chapter 14 – Silas – The Puppeteer

I should be in bed with her.

That’s the truth. The raw, blood-hot truth pressing against the base of my spine as I sit in the surveillance control center at the edge of Willowridge like a fucking ghost in his own room, every nerve in my body tuned to one frequency:her.

I should be buried between her thighs right now, drunk on her skin, tasting the sweat she wears like perfume and coaxing those breathy, broken sounds from her throat until she forgets every name but mine. I want to hear her beg, to see those perfect lips part around a gasp as I break her in every way she asks me to.

But instead, I’m here. Watching. Because wanting her doesn’t trump protecting her. Because she doesn’t get to be vulnerable. Not for a second, and not on my fucking watch.

And that’s what kills me the most—how goddamn much I want her. And how goddamn much I can’t let myself have her right now.

A hundred screens glow in the dark like a digital altar to obsession. Each one is a surveillance window into this town’s beautiful, glossy rot. Traffic cams, bar feeds, covert mics tucked in event lights and picture frames, and facial recognition threading quietly across every frame. If the devil had a dashboard, it would look like this, and I’d be the one keeping it warm.

One screen shows Zara doing a terrible job at pretending she’s not drunk… again. Another shows Harper laughing too hard at something probably not funny. Someone passes her a drink. Nothing obvious, but I clock it anyway.

A third screen, the one that pulls at something low in my gut, shows Lyra.

I rewind and watch it again.

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